How Pilates Can Build a Better Butt!

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Humorous Yet Informative Article About Best Ways to Shape Your Butt!

Stay with this because it’s short and very well written, AND it talks about 3 butt exercises that strengthen and shape all 3 butt muscles.

It’s rare to hear anyone talk intelligently about sculpting the butt because often there is no talk of ALL THREE glute muscles.

For some reason the video that accompanies this article didn’t transfer over, so after reading this take a look at the short video by clicking the link at the end for the complete article.

Here it is! Enjoy!

How Pilates Can Help You Build a Better Butt

I’ve never had much of a butt, but imagine how shocked I was when I lost it completely.

How did it happen?

Well, I was sick, and I lost weight, and I turned around, and just like that… no more bum. The tragedy of it all haunts me, and unfortunately this isn’t the first time it’s happened.

Everyone gains and loses weight differently. Some people carry weight around their abdomen. Others gain weight first at their hips. And some people are rail thin and need muscle to keep from looking like skeletons.

But back to my backside. Or lack thereof.

Whenever I lose weight or don’t work out enough, my butt falls off. It’s why I request glutes in class every single time.

Fortunately, my post-surgical weight gain plan is starting to work. And, as I am obsessed with my glute strength, I was able to get at least some curve back. How did I do it?

First of all, to understand how to build a better butt, you need a quickie anatomy lesson of what’s there. The “glutes” are actually three muscles – the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and gluteus minimus. A lot people spend a lot of time training the glute max. Think squats. Lots and lots of squats.

The problem is that when you only do squats, you’re missing out on what I think are the more important parts of the glutes – the medius and minimus. These muscles are on the upper outer part of your bum. And if you build them up, you lift the tush, creating a rounder look……

But to work the glute med and min (cute nicknames, huh?), there’s a couple of ways to go:

Closed-chain exercises: This means that your leg isn’t floating in space – it’s attached to something (the floor, the footbar on the reformer, a ladder rung). When you do single leg exercises in a closed chain – like a single leg bridge – the leg that is on the floor has to do a lot of work. And your glute muscles are all working together to stabilize that position. It’s also the reason why when you’re in a quadruped position and you’re moving one leg, it’s the kneeling hip that often starts to hurt. It usually means that your glute med could use some strengthening.

Open-chain exercises: In these exercises your leg isn’t attached to anything. So, we might do a leg lift in external rotation – focusing on contracting the muscles that lift your leg from this position (you guessed it, glute med and min).

Ideally, you do a combination of open and closed-chain exercises to build a stronger (and perkier) butt. And that’s exactly what I did to get my missing butt back.

About The Author

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One Comment

DeniseOctober 26, 2015

Oh this is great! And I cannot wait to get my BUTT BACK. Thank you – I’m trading in my squats for Pilates!